This is a poem by one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver.

I think reading her work is an act of prayer in itself.

Mindful
By Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for—
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

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July 5, 2010

The Holy Hippy-Hippy Shake

By Enuma Okoro

(Photo taken by E. Okoro)

Hips Don't Lie (Port Harcourt, February 2010)

I come from a line of West African women who know how to shake their hips effortlessly on the dance floor, isolating movements so that it appears as though the hipbone is not in fact connected to the back bone. Whenever our family gathers and the African beats come on I stand in awe and envy at what my aunts can do. Needless to say, I cannot move my hips accordingly. Yet, my aunts never cease to give up hope in me. Inevitably before the dance is over they call me to their sides and try to teach me what should “come naturally to me.” Inevitably I fail, except for that one quick passing moment when miraculously I am able to heed their counsel to “just relax and listen to the rhythm.” The fact that I catch on for even just a minute gives me hope because it suggests that the rhythm is in there within me somewhere. I just need the practice to make it somewhat second nature to how my body knows to move. I need the practice and I need good, patient, hopeful teachers. I liken this to discipline.

The thing about discipline is that we too often forget that it is not punishment meted out by a condemning or party-pooper God. I like to think that discipline is actually more like a beautiful multi-rhythmic dance into which God invites us to follow God’s lead. If I can just relax and commit myself to letting God lead and to my regularly practicing the simple but intricate steps of the dance then when the inevitable beat of life comes on the hope is that I will be less prone to having rigid or flailing arms and two left feet, or for that matter, uncontrollable hips. Staying in step with God’s graceful and sometimes impassioned hip shaking movements of discipline can help me more faithfully and gracefully maneuver my own often-faltering steps in the world.

It helps me to think of this discipline dance as one more way of trying to be true to my best self, trying to honor the person I believe I was created to be, the person, whom on my best days, I actually desire to be. Dancing towards discipline can sometimes mean acting and speaking in ways that may not make a whole lot of sense to other people. In fact, sometimes these ways may not initially make a whole lot of sense to ME beyond just “knowing” I should follow the divine lead, learning to “just relax and listen” for God’s divine rhythms. If we truly believe we are made in the image of God then shouldn’t our bodies, minds and hearts be able to “pick up” on the movements of the Spirit – if we are open and attentive? Isn’t divine dancing in our genes?

But I find that attempts at practicing discipline, listening, and heeding come with its own temptations. It can be especially tempting to ignore that which you are convicted by when acting on your convictions may not seem to make a difference to anyone else but you. Yet it seems that those are the most important times to strive to live into who you know you are meant to be.

One way I have recently experienced this is in having to offer an apology to someone for something he may not even have perceived as a wrong doing.  But I knew it was wrongful behavior on my part, inconsistent with who I believe God is shaping me into, and with the Enuma I would most want to recognize at a later date. In my estimation I had acted in a way that failed to see this particular other first and foremost as another child of God created beautiful and full of gift for his own sake alone. And secondly I had failed to see and honor this man for the person I believe God is shaping him into, the person that he would most want to recognize in himself at a later date. Instead, I too easily chose to see him for what he could reflect back to me about myself. It can be very hard to acknowledge this distinction because it is so easy to see the world from our own vantage points.
But here is the nugget. The point is not that I offered the odd apology. The point is not how this beautiful man received the apology. The point is not whether I will fail again at this particular issue or not. The point IS that when we commit ourselves to the hard soul-stretching, heart-turning work of living in the image of a loving God then the ever active and roaming Spirit of that loving God hounds us into loving confession, repentance, and transforming discipline. It doesn’t happen overnight but the more we act on what we hear the more we are prone to hear, and I believe the more we desire to act. This is how new habits are practiced and learned. This is how dancing with God slowly becomes second nature.

I can’t remember who it was that said, “Character is who you are when nobody is looking.” Maybe it was the same person who said, “Dance like nobody is watching.”

Nobody, that is but a transforming, gracious and impassioned God. One who never gives up hope that we’ll follow God’s hip shaking lead.